Is GDPR an Opportunity or a Threat?

By Manan Joshi on Sep 20, 2017

Today the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a hot boardroom topic in most organizations. This could be do to several reasons like the high penalties for noncompliance or the aggressive deadline businesses need to comply by, that’s fast approaching. While these aspects of GDPR are intimidating, they also present opportunities that could be used for business advantage.

What is GDPR?

GDPR is a new regulation intended to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union (EU). It aims to give citizens and residents back the control over their personal data and simplify the regulatory environment for international businesses by unifying the regulation within the EU. The deadline for every organization to be GDPR compliant is May 25, 2018 – and it will be here before you know it.

Who does GDPR affect?

GDPR affects every organization in the world that processes personal data of any individual living in the EU. It could be an employee who lives in Belgium working for an organization based out of San Francisco or a customer who lives in Germany buying from an online retailer headquartered in Seattle.

GDPR requirements

GDPR requirements focus on any data that includes the identification of an individual, directly or indirectly. This includes a variety of factors such as a person’s name, address, social security number, IP address or location data. To ensure data protection, organizations need to know where all of their personal data is located, how it is used, and make sure it is secure.

GDPR opportunities

Organizations can take GDPR as an opportunity to grow their business and make it a competitive differentiator. Organizations can improve the following areas:

Process improvements – Research shows 74% of organizations still collect data manually and lack formal structural processes for data collection. In order to be GDPR compliant, you need to be able to know when the data was collected, who requested it and when they requestsed it. Organizations can use this as an opportunity to gain a holistic understanding of all of their processes, eliminate redundancy and implement automations.

Data Governance – GDPR gives organizations the opportunity to reassess their existing data governance policies for all data – not just personal information. Data is your most important asset and with right governance in place you can improve analytical processes and operational efficiency and reduce costs to gain a competitive advantage.

Customer satisfaction – GDPR will enable you to have a 360 degree view of your customer data which will result in improved customer experience. Empowering your customer means empowering your business in a competitive marketplace.

Winshuttle and GDPR

Winshuttle’s data management and governance solutions provide a single platform to govern, protect, monitor and audit the data you process. You can design role-based policies on data access and visualization, encrypt data fields, mask sensitive data, and implement audit and reporting so personal data is not at risk. GDPR is a great opportunity for organizations to get a better and deeper understanding of their data and create a comprehensive data strategy that will prepare them for May 2018 and way beyond. Contact us to explore on how Winshuttle can help you in your GDPR journey today.

About the author

Manan Joshi

Manan is a technology enthusiast whose passion is to solve business challenges using technology.
He is working as a Solutions Engineer with Winshuttle and is responsible for business value assessment, customer presentations, solution building and value engineering.
Prior to Winshuttle, he worked as a Managing Consultant with HCL and SAP Solution Architect with Accenture.